May Day Eve
by Siobhan Terrace
Summary: To all you Filipinos taking up Nick Joaquin: May Day Eve, CCS style! Eriol X Tomoyo


**Disclaimer: I do not own Card Captor Sakura, nor do I own May Day Eve. CLAMP is the creator of CCS, and Nick Joaquin (peace to his soul) is the genius of May Day Eve.  
I do recommend the story. I have chopped it up and revised it to fit CCS, but the real text is amazing (the first paragraph which takes a little more than one whole page is one whole sentence!).**

**   
  
May Day Eve**

The older people had ordered for the dancing to stop at ten o'clock, but it was past midnight when the first carriage arrived for home. The girls were herded upstairs while the young men gathered around to wish them goodnight, mock sighing and moaning, proclaiming themselves disconsolate but straightaway off to finish the punch and brandy although they were all quite drunk already. They simply burst with wild spirits, these young men from Europe, for the ball had been for their fresh arrival. They had waltzed and polkaed, bragged and swaggered, flirted all night, and they were in no mood to sleep. No, Kami-sama, no! Not on this moist tropic eve, this enchanting May eve! It would be madness not to go out (And serenade the neighbors! cried one; Swim at the river! cried another; Catch fireflies! cried a third). So rose a clamor for coats and capes, hats and canes, and then they stumbled and staggered out into the dark night, trooping so uproariously that the disrobing girls from the bedrooms flung themselves by the windows, screaming and sighing, giggling and talking. They continued mooning over those brawling, handsome men, crying to one another so ravished with love until old Kaho chased them off to bed. The watchman down below sang in his great voice: _"Guardia sereno-o! A las doce han dado-o-o!"_

__   
  
May again, said the old Kaho. Old as she may be, she still looked beautiful. It is a night of divination, a night of lovers, and those who cared might peer in a mirror and see the face of whoever it was they were fated to marry. Old Kaho began folding shawls and taking slippers to a corner as she said this, while the girls shrieked in terror and implored the old lady not to frighten them.  
"Enough, enough, Kaho! We want to sleep!" Chiharu said.  
"Go scare the boys instead, you old witch!"  
"She is not a witch, she is a gypsy!" Naoko said firmly, staring in awe.  
"No, no, Saint Kaho, virgin and martyr!"  
"Huh? Impossible! She has conquered seven husbands! Are you a virgin, Kaho?" Bold Meilin asked.  
"No, but I am a martyr because of you, girls!"  
"Let her prophesy! Let her prophesy! Whom will I marry, gypsy? Tell me!"  
"You may learn if you are not afraid, in a mirror."  
"I am not a afraid!" young Tomoyo jumped up. "I will go!"  
"Girls! We're making too much noise!" Chiharu said, trying to drown the voices but remain a tad low. "My mother will hear and pinch us all. Lie down, Tomoyo! And you Kaho, I command you to go away and shut your mouth!"  
"Your mother told me to stay here all night, my grand lady!"  
"And I will not lie down!" Tomoyo cried. She leapt into the floor. "Tell me what I have to do, old woman."  
"Tell her! Tell her!" the girls chimed.  
Old Kaho dropped the clothes she was holding and approached with fixed eyes on the girl. "Take a candle and go into a room that is dark and that has a mirror. You must be alone in the room. Go to the mirror, close your eyes and say:_Mirror, mirror,  
Show to me  
Him whose woman  
I will be.___   
  
If it all goes right, you will see the face of the man you will marry, above your left shoulder."  
A silence.  
"And what if it does not go right?" asked Tomoyo.  
"May you be pitied, then!"  
"Why?"  
"Because you may see—a Demon!"  
The girls screamed and clutched themselves, shivering.  
"Nonsense!" Tomoyo declared. "This is the year 1847. There are no demons anymore!" And yet, the girl turned pale. "But where could I go, huh? I know! The sala! It has a big mirror and no one is there now."  
"No, Tomoyo, no! It will be a mortal sin! You will see a demon!" Rika cried out.  
"I do not care! I am not afraid, I will go!"  
"You horrid girl!"  
"If you do not come into bed, I will call my mother!" Chiharu said, trembling.  
"And if you do so, I will tell her of Yamazaki's visit to you last March. Old woman, give me the candle!"  
"Stop her, girls! Come and block the door!"  
But Tomoyo had already slipped out and was tiptoeing downstairs. She paused, a little shaky at the dark halls, not so full of life as before. She walked steadily enough and found the door to the sala. She crossed herself and stepped inside.  
The mirror hung on the wall before her. It was a big antique mirror with a gold frame and carved mystic leaves and flowers. She approached hesitantly, herself a ghost, for her skin was fair and her nightgown was immaculately white.  
She closed her eyes and said the incantation. When she finished, such a terror took hold of her that she felt unable to move and she thought she would be frozen there forever. But she heard a step, a smothered laugh, and she opened her eyes.**"And what did you see, Mama? Oh, what did you see?"**  
But Tomoyo-dono had forgotten about the young child in her lap. She was staring past the chestnut head and into the very same mirror, for they were in the very same room. But the face in the mirror was neither as young nor as fresh anymore, although her eyes still remained celestial.  
"What did you see, Okaasan? What did you see?" young Sakura asked.  
Tomoy-dono looked at her daughter and her eyes filled with tears. "I saw...a Demon!"  
"Oh!" The child blanched. "Oh!"  
"Yes, my dearest. I opened my eyes and on my left shoulder was the face of a demon, smiling so treacherously at me."  
"My poor little Mama! Okaasan no kawai sou! You were frightened?"  
"You can imagine. And that is why little girls do not look into the mirrors except when their mothers tell them. You must stop looking at yourself in every mirror you pass, my dearest, or you may see something frightful."  
"Yes, Mama." Sakura bowed her head.  
"And your Yukito will never notice you if you do not even notice him when he comes, dearest."  
Sakura blushed, but Tomoyo-dono was plotting that she would drown in pig's blood before she let her Sakura marry a kind but weak man like him. Yukito was the warmest at heart but he would be a sad marriage.  
"The demon, Mama...what did he look like?"  
"Well, let me see...he had dark hair and a pair of spectacles..."  
"Glasses? Like those of Papa?"  
"Yes, dearest. But Papa's are old. The demon wore them and he looked so dignified, too handsome!"  
"What else, Okaasan?"  
"The dark hair...yes, like Papa's, but Papa is graying, and the Demon had sleek hair, a fine crop of hair! And his eyes! Such a shade of azure!"  
"Did he have horns and a tale, Mama?"  
Tomoyo-dono's lips curled. "Yes...but I could not see them, my dearest, all I could see was his elegance and fine clothes..."  
"And did he speak to my Okaasan? Did he, Mama?"  
"Yes...he did..." Tomoyo-dono bowed her head and wept.**"Charms like yours have no need for a candle, fair one,"** he had said, smiling. He bowed, as Tomoyo could see through the mirror. She whirled around and glared, and he burst into laughter.  
"I remember you! You are Tomoyo! You danced with me, but you would not give me the waltz."  
"Let me pass," she had muttered fiercely, for he was blocking the way.  
"But I want to dance the waltz with you, fair Tomoyo," he said.  
So they stood, the candle between them. Young Eriol (who had crept home drunk and hoped to pass out quietly in bed) suddenly found himself alive and ready for anything. His eyes sparkled and his glasses gleamed with each flicker of the candle.  
"Let me pass!" she said, this time with more conviction. And then he grasped her by the hand.  
"No, not until we dance."  
"Go to the devil!"  
"What a temper my dearest has!"  
"I am not your dearest!"  
"Whose then? Someone I know? Someone I have offended? You treat me like your mortal enemy."  
"Why not?" She demanded, jerking her hand away. "I detest the lot of you! You go to Europe, London, Paris, so-and-so! And then you come back boasting, and we poor girls are too tame for your liking! We have no grace, no fire, no salt!"  
"Oh come, what would you know of us?"  
"I have heard you talking," she said wearily. "And I despise you all."  
"And, clearly, you do not despise yourself, dearest. You come toe admire yourself even at night."  
She turned scarlet and he had a moment of satisfaction.  
"I was not admiring myself, sir!"  
"The moon, perhaps?"  
"Oh!" she gasped, and she burst into tears. The candle went out, and she covered her face to sob. Eriol was conscience-stricken.  
"Do not cry! Please forgive me! I am sorry, I was drunk! I was drunk and I know not what I say!"  
He found her hand and put it to his lips. Afterward he placed it on his cheek, the soft, white hand on his cheek.  
She moaned. "Let me go..."  
"Say you forgive me," he begged. "Say you forgive me first, Tomoyo dearest."  
In a flash her hand groped and grabbed his hand. She bit him, hard, and scrambled through the door. Eriol cried out in pain, and lashed out, but all he hit was the air, for she was gone.  
Cruel thoughts raced through his head. He would go tell Sonomi, the pain of a mother...or he would go to the girl's room himself to slap her face!  
And yet, at the same time, he was thinking that they were all off to Reedington the next morning, and he was thinking of how to maneuver himself into her boat.  
She would pay, the harlot! He would have his revenge. But – Kami-sama! – What eyes she had. And what a pretty color she was when angry. How beautiful, the girl was, as he remembered her bare shoulders and long hair. How enchanting she was in her fluid gown!  
How could she think that she had no grace? No fire?  
Suddenly young Eriol realized he was in love, madly and deliriously in love. He ached to see her again!  
He ran to the window, flinging open the window, and felt the air on his face. He was young on this eve! This magical May eve!  
"I will never forget this night," he said to himself.**Alas, he did forget of the night. **Memories later Eriol-sama came walking home, not remembering at all. He was old, over sixty, his daughter had married a fool who did not like to be teased, and he was in good spirits.  
Through the house he went, and then spied a lad in the sala with a candle. The boy dropped the candle in fright but realized who it was and came running.  
"Grandpa!" the boy said, and Eriol-sama turned pale. "How you scared me!"  
"So it was you, little rascal! What is all this, hey? Down admiring yourself at this hour, like an old widow?"  
"No, Grandpa...I am only...I am only..."  
"Yes, you are the great Senor Only! All hail Only the Great! Pleased to meet you, Emperor Only! I may break my cane on your head for this, young Syaoran's boy, for impersonating the late Sir Only!"  
The older one referred to his grandson as the boy of his son-in-law.  
"I was just being foolish, Grandpa. They told me I would see my wife."  
"Wife? What wife?"  
"Mine. The boys at school said to look into this mirror tonight alone with a candle and say:_Mirror, mirror,  
Show to me  
Her whose lover  
I will be."___   
  
Eriol-sama gave a cruel laugh. "So you want your wife already, hey? Wicked games like this, O noble boy of Syaoran, may have wicked consequences."  
"The boys did warn me of seeing a witch instead, Grandpa."  
"Exactly! A witch to bewitch you, one who will drink your blood and eat your heart!"  
"Come now, it is the year 1890. There are no witches anymore."  
"Oh no! I have seen one myself, Fool of a Syaoran's boy!"  
"A witch? Where?"  
"Right in this room in the middle of the night!" the playful tone turned savage. "This very mirror!"  
"When, Grandpa?"  
"Not so long ago, perhaps I was a bit older than you. A vain fellow I was, drunk into thinking I would die and so stopped into the mirror to see how I would be dying. But I poke my head into the room, young boy of Syaoran, and...and..."  
"The witch?"  
"Exactly. She bewitched me, drinking my blood and eating my heart."  
"My poor little Grandpa! Was she horrible?"  
"Horrible? Kami-sama, no, she was beautiful! Enchanting and bewitching! I should have known, boy, I should have known." Eriol-sama nodded gravely.  
The young boy was silent. "What a horrible mirror, Grandpa."  
"How so?"  
"You saw a witch here, no? Mama told me about Grandma. Obasan saw a demon in this mirror once, did she not tell you?"  
Eriol-sama started. It all came back to him. Her flame, his charm, her beauty, his persistence.  
And for a moment he had forgotten...Oh, how vivid! How fiery! The memory of one such May night years and years ago, where the watchman calls: _"Guardia sereno-o! A las doce han dado-o-o!"_


End file.
